Lieberman: Syria could be next target

By James Hohmann

03/27/11 12:54 PM EDT

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) raised the possibility Sunday of U.S. military involvement in Syria if President Bashar Al-Assad massacres his people.

“If Assad does what Qadhafi was doing, which is to threaten to go house to house and kill anybody who’s not on his side, there’s a precedent now that the world community has set in Libya, and it’s the right one,” Lieberman said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re not going to stand by and allow this Assad to slaughter his people like his father did years ago.”

“Finally, we are on the side of the mass of people yearning to be free within the Arab world,” he added.

He suggested that there is an American appetite to back freedom fighters outside Libya.

“Assad, the dictator there, ought to and probably is getting a very clear message: If he turns his weapons on his people and begins to slaughter them, as Qadhafi did, he’s going to run the risk of having the world community come in and impose a no-fly zone and protect (the) civilian population, just as we’re doing in Libya,” Lieberman said. “And therefore Assad has one choice, and that is to negotiate with the freedom fighters in Syria to create an entirely different government there or he too will have to go.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on CBS's "Face the Nation," meanwhile, that the U.S. will not intervene in Syria because many consider Assad a “reformer.”